The Montessori Way
An Education for Life Tim Seldin & Paul Epstein Ph.D.
T
he Montessori Foundation is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of Montessori education around the world. Its mission is to nurture, inspire, and support the development of strong, successful Montessori schools throughout North America. The Foundation is committed to promoting Dr. Montessori’s dream of a worldwide community of children and adults working together to teach peace and global understanding, cooperation rather than conflict, and to celebrate the universal values of kindness, compassion, and nonviolence.
The Montessori Foundation works with the international Montessori community, providing programs, services, resources, and lines of communications among parents, educators, and schools who are interested in learning more about the insights, research, and approach pioneeered by Dr.Maria Montessori.
The Montessori Foundation The Montessori Way is a publication of The Montessori Foundation 1001 Bern Creek Loop Sarasota, Florida 34240 Phone: 941-379-6626/800-655-5843 Fax: 941-379-6671 www.montessri.org Printed by Todd Allen Printing Co., Inc. Beltsville, Maryland © 2003 All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America Reproduction of any part of this publication in any manner is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of the publisher. ISBN: ######## The Montessori Way – 1st ed Cover Photo by Larry Canner Taken at the Oneness Family School, Bethesda, MD For information about purchasing additional copies,or for information on any of the products or services offered by the Montessori Foundation, please call The Foundation at 941-379-6626 or (toll free) 800-655-5843 or visit our website: www.montessori.org
The Montessori Foundation’s programs include: Tomorrow’s Child magazine, an international journal enjoyed by Montessori parents and educators around the world. The Foundation’s Publication Center offers hundreds of difficult-to-find books and other resources of interest to Montessori teachers, parents, and heads of schools. The Montessori Leadership Institute offers a broad program of in-depth and practical courses in Montessori leadership on a wide range of topics — from school design to fundraising, recruitment, internal communications, and curriculum development. The Montessori Academy for Peace and its program of retreats, workshops,and symposia on issues specifically connected to the development of Peaceful Children, Peaceful Families, and Peaceful School Communities. The Foundation’s Montessori School Consultation Service provides a wealth of knowledge and experience when schools need more intensive on-site counsel. We work with boards, Heads of Schools, and faculties for Montessori programs, fundraising, capital campaigns, the search for corporate and foundation support, public relations and recruitment, and assistance in program and curriculum development. The Montessori Foundation inspired the development of the International Montessori Council, a membership organization for Montessori schools, parents, and educators around the world. The Council was formed to offer accreditation to Montessori schools, programs in professional development, school selfassessment and improvement, parenting centers, and to assist with the development of Montessori Councils at the state/provincial and grassroots level. The Council publishes Montessori Leadership, a magazine written specifically for heads of schools, educational coordinators, key parent leaders, and trustees.
The Montessori Way The Montessori Foundation Press
Tim Seldin Paul Epstein, Ph.D.
CONTENTS SECTION
1 THE MONTESSORI WAY Introduction 8 A Typical Montessori Day 11 The Montessori Way 16
History of the Montessori Movement 18 The San Lorenzo Discoveries 21 Montessori’s Legacy 25
Montessori’s Philosophy 30 Core Values 30 Intrinsic Motivation 31 Independence and Movement: Acquiring Self-Discipline 31 Respectful Communities of Mixed-Age Groups 32 The Prepared Environment 33 The Control of Error 36 The Three-Period Lesson 36
Certified Montessori Teachers 38
SECTION
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS The Planes of Development 42 Sensitive Periods 46 The Method of Observation 51 The Normalized Child 53 A Guided Tour of the Montessori Classrooms 55 Montessori for the Kindergarten Year 109 Elementary Programs 115 Secondary Programs 147 Infant-Toddler Programs 175 Montessori in the Home for Young Children 191 Montessori for Learners with Exceptionalities 199
SECTION
APPENDIXES
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Brief Answers to Questions Parents Often Ask 228 Finding the Right School 237
SECTION
CLOSING THOUGHTS
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Preparing Children for the Real World: Reflections on a Montessori Education 213
Bibliography 260
The Montessori Way 221
Index 270
Standards 243
Resources 266
SECTION
1 THE MONTESSORI WAY INTRODUCTION HISTORY OF THE MONTESSORI MOVEMENT MONTESSORI’S PHILOSOPHY CERTIFIED MONTESSORI TEACHERS
THE MONTESSORI WAY
Introduction In 1907, an Italian physician was invited to open a child-care facility for fifty preschool-aged children in a section of Rome that was avoided and neglected because of its oppressive poverty and crime. The children’s parents worked sixteen or more hours a day. In the absence of adult supervision, these children were vandalizing recently renovated housing. Years later, Dr. Maria Montessori recalled her experience of personal transformation in which she discovered something previously unknown about children:*
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“What happened will always remain a mystery to me. I have tried since then to understand what took place in those children. Certainly there was nothing of what is to be found now in any House of Children. There were only rough large tables. I brought them some of the materials which had been used for our work in experimental psychology, the items which we use today as sensorial material and materials for the exercises of practical life. I merely wanted to study the children’s reactions. I asked the woman in charge not to interfere with them in any way, as otherwise I would not be able to observe them. Someone brought them paper and colored pencils, but, in itself, this was not the explanation of the further events. There was no one who loved them. I myself only visited them once a week, and during the day, the children had no communication with their parents. The children were quiet; they had no interference either from the teacher or from the parents, but their environment contrasted vividly from that which they had been used to; compared to that of their previous life, it seemed fantastically beautiful. The walls were white, there was a green plot of grass outside, though
*
8
(Above) Dr. Maria Montessori, c. 1934.
no one had yet thought to plant flowers in it, but most beautiful of all was the fact that they had interesting occupations in which no one, no one at all, interfered. They were left alone, and little by little, the children began to work with concentration, and the transformation they underwent was noticeable. From timid and wild as they were before, the children became sociable and communicative. They showed a different relationship with each other, of which I have written in my books. Their personalities grew and, strange though it may seem, they showed extraordinary understanding, activity, vivacity and confidence. They were happy and joyous. This fact was noticed after a while by the mothers who came to tell us about it. As the children had had no one to teach them or interfere with their actions, they acted spontaneously; their manners were natural. But the most outstanding thing about these strange children of the St. Lorenz Quarter was their obvious gratitude. I was as much surprised by this as everyone else. When I entered the room, all the children sprang to greet me and cried their welcome. Nobody had taught them any manner of good behavior. And the strangest thing of all was that although nobody had cared for them
Maria Montessori (1942), How It All Happened; http://www.montessori-ami.org/ami.htm (January 4, 2003)
INTRODUCTION
physically, they flourished in health, as if they had been secretly fed on some nourishing food. And so they had, but in their spirit. These children began to notice things in their homes: a spot of dirt on their mother’s dress, untidiness in the room. They told their mothers not to hang the washing in the windows but to put flowers there instead. Their influence spread into the homes, so that after a while these also became transformed. Six months after the inauguration of the House of Children, some of the mothers came to me and pleaded that as I had already done so much for their children and they themselves could do nothing about it because they were illiterate, would I not teach their children to read and write? At first I did not want to, being as prejudiced as everyone else that the children were far too young for it. But I gave them the alphabet in the way I have told you. As then it was something new for me also. I analyzed the words for them and showed that each sound of the words had a symbol by which it could be materialized. It was then that the explosion into writing occurred. The news spread, and the whole world became interested in this phenomenal activity of the writing of these children who were so young and whom nobody had taught. The people realized that they were confronted by a phenomenon that could not be explained. For besides writing, these children worked all the time without being forced by anyone to do so.
that Quarter, so ill famed that it was considered hell’s doors, to see for herself the children about whom she had heard wonders. What was the wonder due to? No one could state it clearly. But it conquered me forever, because it penetrated my heart as a new light. One day I looked at them with eyes which saw them differently, and I asked myself: ‘Who are you? Are you the same children you were before?’ And I said within myself: ‘Perhaps you are those children of whom it was said that they would come to save humanity. If so, I shall follow you.’ Since then, I am she who tries to grasp their message to follow them. And in order to follow them, I changed my whole life. I was nearly forty. I had in front of me a doctor’s career and a professorship at the University. But I left it all, because I felt compelled to follow them and to find others who could follow them, for I saw that in them lay the secret of the soul. You must realize that what happened was something so great and so stirring that its importance could never be sufficiently recognized. That it will never be sufficiently studied is certain, for it is the secret of life itself. We cannot fully know its causes. It is not possible that it came because of my method, for at the time my method did not yet exist. This is the clearest proof that it was a revelation that emanated from the children themselves. (Below) A meal at the Montessori School in the Convent of the Franciscan Nuns, Rome, c. 1912.
This was a great revelation, but it was not the only contribution of the children. It was also they who created the lesson of silence. They seemed to be a new type of children. Their fame spread and, in consequence, all kinds of people visited the House of Children, including state ministers and their wives, with whom the children behaved graciously and beautifully, without anyone urging them. Even the newspapers in Italy and abroad became excited. So the news spread, until finally also the Queen became interested. She came to
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THE MONTESSORI WAY
The History of the Montessori Movement Maria Montessori was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for her work with children and education. She summarized her work towards the end of her life: “To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator. Ours was a House for children rather than a real school. We had prepared a place for children, where a diffused culture could be assimilated, without any need for direct instruction...Yet these children learned to read and write before they were five, and no one had given them any lessons. At that time, it seemed miraculous that children of four and one-half should be able to write and that they should have learned without the feeling of having been taught. We puzzled over it for a long time. Only after repeated experiments did we conclude with certainty that all children are endowed with this capacity to ‘absorb’ culture. If this be true, we then argued, if culture can be acquired without effort, let us provide the children with other elements of culture. And then we saw them ‘absorb’ far more than reading and writing: botany, zoology, mathematics, geography, and all with the same ease, spontaneously and without getting tired. And so we discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being. It is not acquired by listening to words but in virtue of experiences in which the child acts in his environment. The teacher’s task is not to talk but to prepare and arrange a series of motives for cultural activity in a special environment made for the child. My experiments, conducted in many different countries, have been going on for forty years (ed. now ninety-seven years), and as the children grew up, parents kept asking me to extend my methods to the later ages. We then found that individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development, and that this is not more true for the little ones of preschool age than it is for the junior, middle, and upper school children.”*
*Maria Montessori, The Absorbent Mind. 18
Dr. Maria Montessori (1870 – 1952)
M
aria Montessori is as controversial a figure in education today as she was almost a century ago. Alternately heralded as the century’s leading advocate for early childhood education or dismissed as outdated and irrelevant, her research and the studies that she inspired helped change the course of education. During her lifetime, Dr. Montessori was intent upon transforming adult beliefs about children and their education. She passionately believed each adult must develop her or his abilities to observe children deeply so as to witness the unfolding of each new human being. In order to discover a child’s hidden potential or secret, a beginning step is to become an observer of children. Montessori discovered a number of “secrets” – aspects of young children never before observed. She described her experiences in terms of a profound transformation and believed this experience would occur for all other adults as well. Those who studied and were influenced by her and went on to make their own contributions to education and child psychology include: Anna Freud, Jean Piaget, Alfred Adler, and Erik Erikson.
HISTORY OF THE MONTESSORI MOVEMENT
Many elements of modern education have been adapted from Montessori’s theories. She is credited with the development of the open classroom, the role of teacher as a guide, multi-age classrooms, developmentally appropriate and individualized education, and the use of manipulative learning materials. In the last thirty-five years, educators in Europe and North America have begun to recognize the consistency between the Montessori approach and what we have learned from research in child development and best teaching practices. Maria Montessori was an individual ahead of her time. She was born in 1870 in Chiaravalle, Italy, to an educated but not affluent middle-class family. She grew up in a country considered most conservative in its attitude toward women. Despite the consider-
able opposition of her father and teachers, Montessori pursued a scientific education and was the first woman to become a physician in Italy. As a practicing physician associated with the University of Rome, she was a scientist, not a teacher. It is ironic that she became famous for her contributions in a field that she had rejected as the traditional refuge for women at a time when few professions were open to them other than homemaking, teaching, or the convent. The Montessori “Method” evolved almost by accident from a small experiment that Dr. Montessori carried out on the side. Her genius stems not from her teaching ability but from her recognition of the importance of that upon which she stumbled. Dr. Montessori specialized in pediatrics and psychiatry. She taught at the medical school of the University of
Rome, and, through its free clinics, she came into frequent contact with the children of the working class and poor. These experiences convinced her that intelligence is not rare and that most children come into the world with a human potential that is barely revealed unless adults create environments specifically designed for children to exercise their learning capabilities. Her work reinforced her humanistic ideals, and she made time in her busy schedule to support various social-reform movements. Early in her career, she began to accept speaking engagements throughout Europe on behalf of the women’s movement, peace efforts, and child labor-law reform. Montessori become well known and highly regard(Below) Building the Pink Tower. A young student working with the Pink Tower materials, c. 1912.
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THE MONTESSORI WAY
maintening a spotless environment, and even learning to read and write. Their behavior as a group changed dramatically, from street urchins running wild to models of grace and courtesy. It was little wonder that the press found such a human-interest story appealing and promptly broadcast it to the world. Montessori called her discoveries the “secrets of childhood.” As she opened more schools, she discovered further that these “secrets” were found in children everywhere. Montessori also discovered that two other qualities were necessary for this response from young children: a carefully prepared teacher and an environment specifically prepared for the learning capabilities found in its children. Montessori made a practice of paying close attention to their spontaneous behavior, arguing that only in this way could a teacher know how to teach. Traditionally, schools paid little attention to children as individuals, other than to demand that they adapt to the school’s standards. Montessori believed that the educator’s job was to serve the child, determining what each one needed to make the greatest progress. To her, a child who failed in school should not be blamed, anymore than a doctor should blame a patient who does not get well fast enough. After all, it is the job of the physician to help us find the way to cure ourselves, and the educator’s job is to facilitate the natural process of learning. In 1907, Montessori’s children exploded into academics. Too young to go to public school, they begged to be taught how to read and write. They learned to do so quickly and enthusiastically, using special manipulative materials that Montessori designed for maximum appeal and effectiveness. The children were fascinated by numbers. To meet this interest, the mathematically inclined Montessori
*Maria Montessori, The Secret of Childhood 22
developed a series of concrete math learning materials that have never been surpassed. Soon her four- and five-year-old students were performing four-digit addition and subtraction operations and in many cases pushing on even further. Their interests blossomed in other areas as well, compelling an overworked physician to spend night after night designing new materials to keep pace with the children’s interest in geometry, geography, history, and natural science. The final proof of the children’s desires came shortly after her first school became famous, when a group of well-intentioned women gave them a marvelous collection of lovely and expensive toys. The new gifts held the children’s attention for a few days, but they soon returned to the more interesting learning materials. To Montessori’s surprise, children who had experienced both preferred work over play most of the time. In her insightful book, The Secret of Childhood, she wrote:
“Although the children in our first school could play with some really splendid toys, none cared to do so … I decided to help them play with their toys … The children were momentarily interested, but then went off on their own … [A child] regards play as we would regard a game of chess or bridge. These are pleasant occupations for hours of leisure…[but] when we have some important business to do, bridge is forgotten.”* Montessori evolved her Method through trial and error, making educated guesses about the underlying meaning of the children’s actions. She was quick to pick up on their cues and constantly experimented with the class. For example, Montessori tells of the morning when the teacher arrived late to find that the children had
crawled through a window and gone right to work. At the beginning, the learning materials were expensive and hand made. Each was locked away in a tall cabinet. Only the teacher had a key and would open the cabinet and hand the materials to the children. In this instance, the teacher had neglected to lock the cabinet the night before. Finding it open, the children had selected one material apiece and were working quietly. As Montessori arrived, the teacher was scolding the children for taking the materials without permission. Montessori recognized that the children’s behavior showed that they were capable of selecting their own work, and she removed the cabinet and replaced it with low, open shelves on which the activities were always available to the children. Today, this may sound like a minor change, but it contradicted all educational practice and theory of that period. One discovery followed another, leading Montessori towards understanding the learning capabilities of the young child. She found that young children enjoyed long periods of quiet concentration, even though they rarely showed signs of it in everyday settings. Although they were often careless and sloppy, they responded positively to an atmosphere of calm and order. Montessori noticed that the logical extension of the young child’s love for a consistent and often-repeated routine is an environment in which everything has a place. Her children took tremendous delight in carefully carrying their work to and from the shelves, taking great pains not to bump into anything or spill the smallest piece. They walked carefully through the rooms, instead of running wildly as they did on the streets. Montessori discovered that the environment itself was an essential component in obtaining the results that she had observed.
THE SAN LORENZO DISCOVERIES
Not wanting to use school desks, she had carpenters build child-sized tables and chairs. She was the first to recognize the frustration that a little child experiences in an adult-sized world. Eventually, she learned to design entire schools around the size of the children. She had miniature pitchers and bowls prepared and found forks and knives that fit a child’s tiny hand. The tables were lightweight, allowing two children to move them without adult assistance. The children learned to control their movements, disliking the way the calm was disturbed when they knocked into things. Montessori studied the traffic pattern of the rooms as well, arranging the furnishings and the activity area to minimize congestion and tripping. The children loved to sit on the floor, so she bought little rugs to define their work areas, and the children quickly learned to walk around them. Over the years, Montessori schools extended this environmental engineering throughout their entire buildings and outside areas, designing child-sized toilets and low sinks, windows low to the ground, low shelves, and miniature hand and garden tools of all sorts. Some of these ideas were eventually adapted by the larger educational community, particularly at the nursery and kindergarten levels. Many of the puzzles and educational devices now in general use at the early childhood and elementary levels are direct copies of Montessori’s original ideas. However, there is far more of her work that never entered the mainstream, and today’s educators who are searching for new, more effective answers are finding the accumulated experience of the Montessori community to be of great interest. The first “Children’s House” received overnight attention, and thousands of visitors came away amazed and enthusiastic. Worldwide interest
surged as Montessori duplicated her first school in other settings throughout Europe, and then in the United States, with the same results. Her American tours between 1912 and 1918 were made with the support of the Washington Montessori Society, whose members included Alexander Graham Bell and Woodrow Wilson’s daughter. Montessori gave lectures at the White House, Carnegie Hall, and numerous universities. She conducted teacher education programs and
developed a classroom at the PanamaPacific International Exposition. Montessori captured the interest and imagination of national leaders and scientists, mothers and teachers, labor leaders and factory owners. As an internationally respected scientist, she had a rare credibility in a field where many others had promoted opinions, philosophies, and models that have not been readily duplicated. (Below) Dr. Maria Montessori, c. 1912.
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
Sensitive Periods
M
ontessori believed in a necessary relationship between children and their environments. Children must find a properly prepared environment if they are to fully develop their unique human potentials. By analogy, consider the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Goldilocks wandered off into the forest, despite warnings and admonishments from her parents to never ever leave home without their permission. Goldilocks, now very lost, arrived at the threshold of an inviting cottage-like house and (again, without permission) walked inside. Greeted by three bowls of porridge, a hungry and tired Goldilocks tasted the first one. It was too cold. The second was too hot. But the third was “just right.” Goldilocks next walked into the living room and tried each of three chairs. The first was too hard, the second too soft, and the third was “just right.” Finally, she found her way to the bedroom of three beds, where the third was also “just right.” This idea is
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the connection between Goldilocks and Montessori. In Montessori’s Early Childhood programs, teachers are charged with providing learning environments in which everything is “just right.” Everything! Food, furniture, learning activities, social relations, clothing, routines, and rituals must all be “just right” in order for each young child to develop her or his fullest potential. No one knows what motivated Goldilocks to wander off into the forest. But for almost one hundred years, Montessori educators have observed a set of motivations shared by young children around the world. What Dr. Maria Montessori discovered in the St. Lorenz Quarter in 1907 was that children are self-motivated to learn from their environment. Borrowing ideas from biologists and philosophers of her day, Montessori proposed that each child carries within himself his potential for physical and cognitive development.
In addition to determining the child’s eventual height, hair color, and other physical characteristics, there is another cognitive plan which determines the unique emotional and intellectual qualities of each child. These qualities develop through what Montessori referred to as “the sensitive periods.” Each sensitive period is a specific kind of compulsion, motivating a young child to seek objects and relationships in his or her environment with which to fulfill his or her special and unique inner potentials. These cannot be directly known. The young child is neither consciously aware of nor capable of directly communicating his or her potentials. Nevertheless, Montessori believed that each child will develop to his or her full human potential when everything in the environment is “just right.” Each sensitive period is: ■ ■
■
■ ■
■
■ ■
A period of special sensibility and psychological attitudes. An overpowering force, interest, or impetus directing the child to particular qualities and elements in the environment. A period of time during which the child centers his or her attention on specific aspects of the environment, to the exclusion of all else. A passion and a commitment. Derived from the unconscious and leads the child to conscious and creative activities. Intense and prolonged activity which does not lead to fatigue or boredom but instead leads to persistent energy and interest. A transitory state once realized, the sensitive period disappears. Never relived or regained, once passed.
SENSITIVE PERIODS
Sensitive Periods From Birth to Age Six Dr. Montessori identified eleven different sensitive periods occurring from birth through age six. Each refers to a predisposition compelling the child to acquire specific characteristics as described below. When Montessori teachers speak about children being “inner directed,” they are referring to an inner compulsion or sensitive period. A Montessori teacher would say, for example, “The child is in her sensitive period for order.” These phrases point to each child’s predisposition to follow her own daily classroom routine in which she chooses the same materials and in the same sequence. Ages of the onset and conclusion of each sensitive period are approximate and are indicated after the general description. 1.
Movement
Random movements become coordinated and controlled: grasping, touching, turning, balancing, crawling, walking. (birth – one)
2.
Language
Use of words to communicate: a progression from babble to words to phrases to sentences, with a continuously expanding vocabulary and comprehension. (birth – six)
3.
Small Objects
A fixation on small objects and tiny details. (one – four)
4.
Order
Characterized by a desire for consistency and repetition and a passionate love for established routines. Children can become deeply disturbed by disorder. The environment must be carefully ordered with a place for everything and with carefully established ground rules. (two – four)
5.
Music
Spontaneous interest in and the development of pitch, rhythm, and melody. (two – six)
6.
Grace & Courtesy
Imitation of polite and considerate behavior leading to an internalization of these qualities into the personality. (two – six)
7.
Refinement of the Senses
Fascination with sensorial experiences (taste, sound, touch, weight, smell) resulting with the child learning to observe and with making increasingly refined sensorial discriminations. (two – six)
8.
Writing
Fascination with the attempt to reproduce letters and numbers with pencil or pen and paper. Montessori discovered that writing precedes reading. (three – four)
9.
Reading
Spontaneous interest in the symbolic representations of the sounds of each letter and in the formation of words. (three – five)
10.
Spatial Relationships
Forming cognitive impressions about relationships in space, including the layout of familiar places. Children become more able to find their way around their neighborhoods, and they are increasingly able to work complex puzzles. (four – six)
11.
Mathematics
Formation of the concepts of quantity and operations from the uses of concrete material aids. (four – six)
Note: Montessori identified additional sensitive periods that the elementary-aged child and the adolescent pass through on the road to adulthood. These are not discussed here at this time.
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
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SENSITIVE PERIODS
Children explore their classrooms, seeking and discovering objects and exercises which satisfy the compulsions of their sensitive periods. The sensitive period of order, for example, compels children to sort and sequence objects into just the right places. Younger children might choose the knobbed cylinders, pink cubes, or red rods. The sensitive period for order compels children to insist that events take place in exactly the right sequence. Parents of toddlers know that their children react loudly whenever anything is out of sequence or order. In The Secret of Childhood, Montessori wrote: “A child’s different inner sensibilities enable him to choose from his complex environment what is suitable and necessary for his growth. They make the child sensitive to some things but leave him indifferent to others. When a particular sensitiveness is aroused in a child, he is like a light that shines on some objects but not on others, making of them his whole world. It is not simply a question of having an intense desire for certain situations or certain things. Within the child there is a unique potentiality for using these objects for his own growth, since it is during the sensitive period that he makes his [cognitive] adjustments like that of being able to adapt himself to his environment or to move about with ever-increasing ease and precision.” If the environment does not contain what the child seeks, Montessori believed that the child would not obtain his or her full potential. The child’s personality would become permanently stunted. In addition to the environment being prepared with just the right objects, the environment must also be prepared at just the right time. Each sensitive period has its own beginning and ending, beginning and ending in its own time. This idea
was powerfully expressed in Nikos Kazantzaki’s novel Zorba the Greek: “I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the bark of a tree just as the butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes — faster than life. The case opened, the butterfly started slowly crawling out, and I shall never forget the horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled. The wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath, in vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently, and the unfolding of the wings should have been a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear — all crumpled — before its time. It struggled desperately and a few seconds later died in the palm of my hand. That little body I believe is the greatest weight I have on my conscience, for I realize today that it is a sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry. We should not be impatient, but we
should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.” Early Childhood Montessori practice is largely based on the idea of sensitive periods, and teachers observe carefully for their presence as each child develops. The eleven sensitive periods have been observed in children from all socioeconomic backgrounds as well as in a large number of cultures, including (by co-author Paul Epstein) children living in an arctic town in Sweden, the slums of Brazil, and a mountain village in Nepal.
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
Montessori teachers work with three powerful tools: The first is their knowledge of child development and the sensitive periods. The second is knowing how to prepare the classroom environment so that each sensitive period is satisfied. The third is knowing how to observe.
Montessori Teachers Use Several Principles to Prepare a Classroom Environment ... The Principle of Freedom: Children freely choose their own “work” — learning activities — based on their currently active inner sensitive period. But freedom is not a free-for-all. Instead, the principle here is that of freedom within limits. The Montessori teacher understands that for young children, freedom is an accomplishment of the development of inner self-discipline. Self-discipline is understood to be a result of succeeding independently of others. In other words, adults must never do for the child anything that the child can learn to perform for him or herself. Instead, the adult must protect each child’s choice by ensuring that the child will be able to work with the chosen learning materials without interruption or interference from other children. Beauty: Each learning activity is complete; everything needed is present and in good repair. Objects placed in the classroom are attractive and elegant, designed to attract the child’s interest and attention. Contact with Nature and Reality: The classroom objects also represent reality and nature. Children use real sinks and refrigerators instead of play ones. Because in real life everyone does not have the same thing at the same time, there is only one piece of material instead of multiple sets. Dr. Montessori taught that a child’s direct contact with nature results with understanding and appreciating order and harmony. The Montessori classroom environment is a place of life. Children learn to take care of plants, animals, and fish. Magnifying glasses, microscopes, and simple experiments are available for children to observe and learn from nature.
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THE METHOD OF OBSERVATION
The Method of Observation
O
ften people think of the Montessori materials as “The Montessori Method.” The Montessori materials are, however, the result of the Method. The Method is observation. Montessori taught that the purpose for observation is to assist children’s growth and development. To accomplish this purpose, teachers engage in a process known as “scientific pedagogy.” Teachers observe and then prepare the classroom environment with appropriate learning materials and activities. According to Montessori philosophy, young children engage in specific patterns of behavior to explore and learn about their world. Described as the “sensitive periods,” young children do not directly talk about these patterns of behavior. The task of the teacher is to discern each child’s needs and interests as they explore the classroom. Montessori teachers observe children’s exploratory patterns of behavior with an implication of trust and respect. Teachers trust that a child will “know” and pursue what she or he most needs in order to become an adult. An often heard expression of this Montessori principle of trust is, “follow the child.” Each child will explore that which interests him or her. Montessori once spoke to parents about children’s interests and suggested:
dren is freedom to go about their work in their own way, for in this matter your child knows better than you.” Observing interests also applies to teachers of children in the elementary and secondary programs. The task of observation involves discovering and respecting children’s pursuits of their interests, for each is following their needs in order to grow and mature. Older children typically talk about and identify their interests; younger children may not. To discover the interests of young children, Montessori directed teachers to observe how long a child works with or stays involved with an activity. The teacher also observes what the child does with the learning materials. An elaborate series of record-
keeping systems may be used by teachers to record children’s uses of the learning materials and their learning accomplishments. Record keeping, a necessary classroom activity is not, however, observation. With a focus on discovering and understanding inner needs and interests, Montessori directed teachers to understand what she called the psychic or spiritual development of children. This purpose still sets Montessori education apart from many other approaches. Psychic or spiritual development is not, in terms of Montessori philosophy, a religious experience. It is, rather, the development and expression of qualities such as compassion, empathy, kindness, gentleness, and respect. Learning how to observe these qualities requires, according to Montessori,
“Those of us who have tried to learn the ways of childhood from children (instead of from our own ideas) have been amazed at the discoveries we have made. And there is one point on which we all agree – children live in a world of their own interests. The work they do there must be respected, for though many childish activities may seem pointless to grown-ups, nature is using them for her own ends. She is building mind and character as well as bone and muscle. The greatest help you can give your chil-
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
Eating together ...
(Above) Washing and Ironing Children learn to wash small polishing cloths and napkins. Once the cloths are dry, they learn to iron and fold them using a special low-temperature children’s iron. Think of the pride that these young children take in doing real things, rather than pretending to help around the house. (Left) Food Preparation When the children are hungry, they prepare their own snacks. They pour themselves a drink from a little pitcher that is just right for their small hands. When finished they clean up and wash their dishes. When something spills, they help each other carefully clean up. In Montessori classrooms, you will find small children cutting raw fruit and vegetables. Older Montessori students learn all sorts of everyday living skills, from cooking to balancing a checkbook. They plan parties, learn how to decorate a room, arrange flowers, garden, and do simple household repairs. Montessori builds many opportunities into the curriculum for students to learn from hands-on experiences. They learn to cook, set tables, eat together in a peaceful atmosphere, and steadily grow in their self-confidence and independence.
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A GUIDED TOUR OF MONTESSORI CLASSROOMS — PRACTICAL LIFE
(Above) Sewing
(Above) Animals in the Montessori environment
By learning how to sew, children not only learn a Practical Life skill, they also develop fine-motor skills.
Children learn to care for the small animals being raised in or outside the classroom.
(Above and right) Gardening in and outside the Montessori classroom A sense of beauty is a key element of Montessori. This young student, pictured above, is planting flowers in the class garden, which will later be cut to place in the bud vases on each table in her classroom. The boy to the right is helping to care for the plants in his indoor environment.
“Adults work to finish a task, but the child works in order to grow and is working to create the adult, the person that is to be.” — Montessori
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
(Left) The Long Division Racks and Tubes
The Short Division Board
Multiplication & Division The Short Multiplication and Division Boards offer another pathway to abstraction with these two operations. In the Multiplication Board, the child lays out individual unit beads on a board organized into nine rows of nine shallow holes. The child lays out the beads in columns. For example, 4 x 8 would be eight columns of four beads in each column. The Short Division Board is similar, except that here each vertical column of shallow holes represents one equal share, where a quantity is divided into two or more groups. The child places one small skittle at the top of each column to mark the number of shares that will be in the divisor. To divide twenty-four by six, she begins by placing six skittles along the top. Then she counts out the number of beads that she wants to divide and begins to distribute them, placing one bead in each hole from the top left to right and then down a row, until she finally has shared her quantity equally among the vertical columns. Any beads left over are her “remainder.”
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The Multiplication Board
The Long Division Racks and Tubes help elementary students master division with the use of tubes, skittles, and beads with dividends up to the millions and divisors of up to four digits. It’s not unusual for elementary students to work through problems using numbers much larger than a trillion. (Below) The Multiplication Checkerboard The Multiplication Checkerboard is used by elementary students to master multiplication with numerical hierarchies in the decimal system up to 100,000,000.
A GUIDED TOUR OF MONTESSORI CLASSROOMS — MATH
The passage to abstraction: By this stage the children are recording their work on paper, although many won’t be able to solve the same problems if asked to work with paper and pencil alone without the visual aid of the Montessori materials. Most young children under the age of seven or eight find it difficult, if not impossible, to grasp abstract quantities and what’s really happening when we add, subtract, multiply, or divide. The concrete Montessori materials help the child to see and understand, slowly internalizing each concept until it becomes fixed and clear in her mind. (Above) The Snake Game Naturally children can’t depend on the materials forever. The entire purpose of the Montessori Math curriculum is to make the abstract concrete, until the child can close her eyes and visualize mathematical processes at work. Step by step, the materials become less concrete and more symbolic. Step by step, children are challenged to demonstrate their understanding by teaching what they have learned to younger children, which also tends to reinforce and clarify their grasp of the subjects. Montessori uses a wide range of parallel materials and exercises to help children extend their knowledge and gradually memorize the basic math facts that every one of us is expected to know. As parents, you will eventually begin to hear about materials with odd names like the Snake Game, the Addition and Subtraction Strip Boards, and the Negative Snake Game. Space doesn’t allow us to describe every one of the Montessori math materials, but your child would probably be delighted to introduce (Above) The Addition Strip Board them to you.
(Above) The Multiplication Memorization Chart This student is mastering his multiplication facts with the help of one of the Memorization Charts. Memorization Charts: There is also an involved series of Memorization Charts and associated exercises that help the children in their final stages of mastering addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. When the children have begun to show that they are ready for still more abstract exercises, they’re introduced to another series of math materials. For example, the Bead Frames (or abacus) (pictured on page 90) challenge the child to solve problems in a still more abstract process. The Short Bead Frame allows the child to work with quantities up to 9,999. The Long Bead Frame uses quantities as large as 9,999,999.
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
toms, housing, diet, government, industry, the arts, history, and dress. They learn to treasure the richness of their own cultural heritage and those of their friends. The children also study the emergence of human beings during the old and new stone ages, the development of the first civilizations, and the universal needs common to all humanity. For older elementary students, the focus is respectively on early man, ancient civilizations, and early-American history. Montessori tries to present a sense of living history at every level through direct hands-on experience. Students build models of ancient tools and structures, prepare their own manuscripts, make ceremonial masks, and re-create all sorts of artifacts of the everyday life of historical eras. Experiences such as these make it much easier for Montessori children to appreciate history as it is taught through books. While Montessori schools are communities apart from the outside world, in which children can first begin to develop their unique talents, they are also consciously connected to the local, national, and global communities. The goal is to lead each student to explore, understand, and grow into full and active membership in the adult world. Field trips provide opportunities to explore the world outside the classroom.
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(Above) Research Card Materials Younger elementary children often use simplified research card material and charts in their studies.
(Left) The Imaginary Island Puzzle The Imaginary Island Puzzle introduces students in elementary classes to thirty-eight land and water forms. They study vocabulary and definitions of such words as isthmus, butte, tributary, archipelago, bight, lagoon, and more. Children also learn to plot longitude and latitude and analyze the flora and fauna of a region. With the use of eighty-four puzzle pieces, students are able to create an infinite variety of islands of their own design, modifying them at will, and reinforcing vocabulary words during the process.
GUIDED TOUR OF MONTESSORI CLASSROOMS — HISTORY, GEOGRAPHY, & INTERNATIONAL CULTURE
(Right) International studies continue at every age level in Montessori education. The curriculum integrates art, music, dance, cooking, geography, literature, and science. Children learn to prepare and enjoy dishes from all over the world. They learn traditional folk songs and dances in music and explore folk crafts in art. In Language Arts, they read the traditional folk tales and research and prepare reports about the countries they are studying that year. Units of study often culminate in marvelous international holidays and festivals that serve as the high points of the school year.
Foreign Languages As part of the International Studies program, most Montessori schools introduce a second language to even their youngest children. The primary goal in a Foreign Language program is to develop conversational skills along with a deepening appreciation for the culture of the second language.
The student pictured here is researching colonial America.
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(Right) Exploring the Elements This elementary student is exploring the elements. He is constructing models of the atomic structure of one element, placing protons and neutrons in the nucleus and electrons in the outer shells.
(Above) Mendelev’s Periodic Table of the Elements
(Above) Constructing Molecules These two elementary students are constructing models of common molecules, using wooden spheres to represent different elements.
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Working with this unique teaching version of Mendelev’s Periodic Table of the Elements, elementary children begin to learn about the more complex elements, their symbols, and how various elements are grouped together according to their properties. At the same time, children are looking for examples of common elements in their daily environment and beginning to research information about the characteristics and uses of the elements.
A GUIDED TOUR OF MONTESSORI CLASSROOMS — SCIENCE
(Right) Out of the Classroom ... Into the Garden
(Above) Vertebrate Cards The Vertebrate Cards help elementary children understand how to classify vertebrates into simple classes of amphibians, mammals, birds, fish, and reptiles.
Working with nature, both in and out of the classroom helps Montessori students integrate conceptual science with practical life skills. Students of all ages experience the excitement of watching their seedlings develop into beautiful flowers for a floral arrangement to decorate their classroom or vegetables to prepare for a midmorning snack. (Left) Chart of the Plant Kingdom These nineyear-old students are classifying cards with different plants on the Chart of the Plant Kingdom into their phyla and genera. (Right) ThreePart Cards Younger students use the ThreePart Cards to isolate each element as part of a system to learn correct terminology.
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MONTESSORI PROGRAMS
In Closing — The Role of Parents
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arents play a vital role in the development of “community” in Montessori
schools. Through their presence at school as volunteers and through a wide range of social events and celebrations, students get to know the families of their friends and grow up with a sense of being part of an extended community. One of our common goals is to lead each of our students to explore, understand, and grow into full and active membership in the adult world.
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MONTESSORI FOR THE KINDERGARTEN YEAR
Montessori for the Kindergarten Year
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very year at re-enrollment time, in thousands of Montessori schools all over North America, parents of four- and almost-five-year-old children are trying to decide whether or not they should keep their sons and daughters in Montessori for kindergarten or send them off to the local public schools. The advantages of using the local schools often seem obvious; the advantages of staying in Montessori are sometimes not at all clear. When parents can use the local schools for free, why would they want to invest thousands of dollars in another year’s tuition? It’s a fair question, and it deserves a careful answer. Obviously, there is no one right answer for every child. Often the decision depends on where each family places its priorities and how strongly parents sense that one school or another more closely matches their hopes and dreams for their children. Naturally, to some degree the answer is also often connected to the question of family income as well. We are amazed, however, at how often families with very modest means place such a high priority on their children’s education that they are willing to find the tuition dollars needed to keep them in Montessori. So here are a few answers to some of the questions parents often ask about Montessori for the kindergarten-age child.
Q
In a nutshell, what would be the most important short-term disadvantage of sending my five-year-old to the local school?
When a child transfers from Montessori to a new kindergarten, she spends the first few months adjusting to a new class, a new teacher, and a whole new system with different expectations. This, along with the fact that most kindergartens have a much lower set
A
of expectations for five-year-olds than most Montessori programs, severely cuts into the learning that could occur during this crucial year of their lives. In a few cases, Montessori Kindergarten children may look as if they are not as advanced as a child in a very academically accelerated program, but what they do know, they usually know very well. Their understanding of the decimal system, place value, mathematical operations, and similar information is usually very sound. With rein-
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